An Ordinary Family
by Chelle-sama
Summary: A look at Fujitaka's family, early in the days of his marriage.


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Disclaimer: Everyone and everything belongs to CLAMP/Kodansha. Even you.

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Dedication: Circe, as ever. Sakura, for encouragement – finally, I feel like writing! 

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Notes: You'll notice that I'm calling the baby 'Touya-chan' or 'To-ya-chan'; -chan is used for small children, even the boys. Mizuki and Yuki call him To-ya later, and it's a very familiar/affectionate term, so I thought Nadeshiko might use it as well. 

Referring to Sonomi as a 'tabby kitten' is nicked off the third chapter of Suppi-chan's "Icebreakers" and is used without her permission. But I do thank her for her descriptive words. The word 'omae' translates to 'you' and is considered a very rude way of addressing someone. 

At a year old, a baby calls everyone mama or papa (or da-da).

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An Ordinary Family 

He had seen some very strange things in his life, Fujitaka acknowledged, even if it wasn't yet a very long life. But this was probably going to be the strangest thing he'd ever see. Amamiya Sonomi was fast asleep on his sofa, wearing one of his shirts, and holding his son (who was wide-awake, although Fujitaka suspected that he was supposed to be the one sleeping) as he chewed restlessly on the dragonfly clip in her hair. He checked his watch, made sure it was still ticking and hadn't just stopped at 7:30, then blinked a few times. Shook his head. Nothing in the scene changed except that Touya had paused long enough to wave at him. Perhaps it was time for a second opinion. 

Walking through his apartment like the floor might suddenly fall away, or that his baby son would become some sort of monster that would chase and eat him if he made one wrong move, he made his way back to his bedroom. Nadeshiko looked up from her textbooks and smiled happily.

"Are To-ya-chan and Sonomi-chan all right, anata? They've been very quiet."

"I think so." He stepped over to the bed to kiss her because she was too pretty not to kiss. "Touya-chan is, anyway."

"What's he doing? I keep thinking I should look because he's usually louder when Sonomi-chan is here, but I've really got to finish this…."

"He's…." It was just too strange. "Do you know Sonomi-kun is wearing one of my shirts?"

"Oh, yes. She gave Touya his bath, so I had to hang her things up to dry. I'm glad my blue jeans fit her; she was completely soaked." Nadeshiko laughed a little then looked guiltily towards the door before whispering, "I think she fell in, but she wouldn't say. She'd only say that It Wasn't Funny and that I wasn't to tell you." She paused a moment. "You're home early. What happened?"

"The speaker ended up sick, so they cancelled the lecture. I had dinner with some of the professors from the college's last dig, instead. I guess it wasn't as interesting as being home tonight, though," he grinned and kissed her again.

"Oh, don't say that! Sonomi-chan must be so mad that you saw her like this! What did she say when she saw you?"

"Nothing. She's asleep. But I think Touya-chan might be hungry; he was trying to eat her when I came in." Nadeshiko gave him a look, so he elaborated. "She's wearing that clip he really likes and he's drooling all over her. Come have a look." He took her hand to help her up and held it all the way back to the living room, where she pulled it away to clap in delight. 

"Oh, they're so cute! Go get the camera." 

Touya looked up when Nadeshiko spoke, but clearly decided that his mother wasn't nearly as interesting as the No, Touya-chan! they had yet to take away from him. Sonomi didn't so much as twitch. And as long as she was going to stay asleep, Fujitaka didn't see the harm in letting his wife take a few pictures. It _was_ a very cute scene. Or maybe it was just that he'd never seen Touya so quiet or Sonomi so calm.

"I turned the flash off," he whispered when he handed his now misty-eyed wife the camera. "I don't think Sonomi-kun would appreciate being woken up."

"Oh, you don't have to whisper. Sonomi-chan sleeps very deeply. The only time I ever saw her wake up quickly was the time Uncle found out her…um…" Nadeshiko coughed in slight embarrassment. "I can't tell you what it is because I promised Auntie and Uncle that I wouldn't ever tell anyone, but he found out really early and yelled "What were you _thinking_, Sonomi-chan?" loud enough that even _I_ heard him. She was out of bed and out the window before he got halfway up the stairs. So unless you do a really good impression of Uncle, you don't have to whisper." She beamed at him and raised the camera.

"Out the window?"

"Yes. Now hush. To-ya-chan? Touya-chan, look at Mama! Look here!" Touya, growling fiercely at the dragonfly between his teeth, ignored her entirely. Nadeshiko sighed and took the picture anyway. Touya leaned back, staring at his shiny nemesis, and decided to try to pull the clip out of Sonomi's hair with his chubby baby fingers, making Nadeshiko sigh in frustration. "No, Touya-chan! Don't pull on that, please," she admonished, snapping another picture. "You can't take that away from Sonomi-chan. You'll choke on it, sweetie."

Touya scowled at the clip and went back to biting at it while Fujitaka laughed softly. "He's persistent, isn't he?" He wrapped his arms around his wife from behind, breathing in the scent of her hair. "I wonder where he got that from?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," Nadeshiko teased. "I'm certainly not like that." She leaned back into him, turning her face up for a quick kiss. "Must be from you."

"Me? He doesn't even look like me. You know whom he _does_ look like…"

"Uncle. He looks like a very little version of Uncle, with a bit of me and Father thrown in for good measure."

"And you think he acts like me?"

"Well, he had to get his bad habits from somewhere." She giggled at his wounded expression.

"First Sonomi-kun, now you. Next it'll be Touya-chan calling me names. I just can't win."

"I didn't call you any names, anata," she reminded him, getting a picture of Touya chewing on Sonomi's hair above the clip. "Oh, isn't he clever, Fujitaka-sensei? That's just like you, too."

"Trying to get back on my good side? Well…it'll work" He kissed the side of her neck. "I'll go make a bottle for Touya-chan, okay? It's about time for him to go to bed."

"Mmm, okay. I don't think he'll sleep, though. Sonomi-chan winds him up too much."

"How can she be winding him up? She's asleep." He kissed her again before kissing Touya (and getting his picture taken while doing it) on his way to the kitchen. He hummed contentedly as he went about the familiar routine, loving the sound of his family in the next room, although hearing Touya growling was taking some getting used to. He had the vague suspicion that Touya had gotten that from Sonomi-kun, who took a fiendish delight in teaching the baby some very strange things. All last week he'd been greeted at the door with a scowl, a poke in the knee, and 'omae'.

"I'm turning the flash back on." Nadeshiko told him as he returned, bottle in hand. "I think it might be too dark in here. Will you turn Touya-chan so that he's facing the camera? All I've got is the back of his head, and sometimes part of his face."

"Are you sure she's not going to wake up?" He wasn't afraid of his wife's cousin but Fujitaka knew that he was already on her bad side and he didn't want to find out if she had a worse side to get on. He saw Nadeshiko's smile becoming a pout and moved to head it off. "I mean, she must be very tired to have fallen asleep so early. We shouldn't wake her." He turned his son as best he could without actually lifting him up. Touya growled loudly at him, which Fujitaka chose to ignore. Touya was always a bit on the prickly side when he wanted something.

"She's got to go home soon, anyway, anata; her 'study group' can't last all night. Besides, I'm the one taking the picture, aren't I? You can always hide in the bedroom, if you'd like." Nadeshiko smiled warmly at her glowering husband. "Just a little bit more, please. There! Now I can see our baby's face! Smile, To-ya-chan!"

Touya finally looked up, hissing like a cat at the bottle his father held, and Nadeshiko lowered the camera to stare at Fujitaka in shock.

"She's _your_ cousin," he reminded her.

"I don't think she taught him this. It's too strange, even for her. Besides, Sonomi-chan never hisses."

Fujitaka smiled and wrapped one arm around his wife as she raised the camera again. "She hisses all the time," he said agreeably. "Every time she sees me. She sounds just like a little tabby kitten."

"Oh, she does _not_. Ready, Touya-chan?" 

Touya, one hand on the dragonfly, the other reaching for his bottle, jerked around to stare at his mother just as the flash went off. This was a terrible idea, Fujitaka thought to himself as the light faded. Touya, enraged, gave vent to an absolutely blood-curdling shriek and yanked at the clip in fury. He continued to scream in anger even as Sonomi, also screaming, bolted upright on the couch, overbalanced, and fell onto the floor, Touya held protectively in her arms.

Nadeshiko, startled by Sonomi's screaming, joined right in. 

Already making a mental note to apologize to the neighbors for the noise, Fujitaka stepped forward and helped Sonomi into a sitting position. Touya was purple with rage and seemed unhurt, if the way he was peevishly slapping at his father and shouting was any indication. Sonomi, sporting a nice lump where her temple had hit the coffee table, looked dazed.

"To-ya-chan? What's wrong, baby?" She asked him, cuddling the little bundle of open hostility. "Are you okay? Did we bump your head on the ground? What happened, sweetie?"

Touya, always one to take advantage of an opportunity to play 'let's all pity poor little baby Touya-chan', began sobbing and clutching at her, and screamed when Fujitaka reached for him. Which was yet another terrible idea. Sonomi's attention turned to him, and the look on her face was less than friendly.

"Are you all right, Sonomi-kun?"

"What the hell did you do to him?" She growled, stroking Touya's back gently. "You could have _killed_ us, you idiot. Just what were you thinking, surprising him like that? Do you have _any_ common sense at all, Sensei?"

"Touya-chan! Sonomi-chan! Are you two okay? Are you hurt? Should I call a doctor? Oh, I'm so sorry, Sonomi-chan! I didn't realize he was going react like that, or that you would, and it's my fault!" Nadeshiko carefully glomped her cousin and son, who slapped at her, too. 

Fujitaka moved to let his wife take over the cooing and coddling and cooling down of their little family. Now that she was fully awake, Sonomi-kun was starting to work herself into a fit, which he knew to avoid if he possibly could. Even if she wasn't mad at him (which wasn't very often, but it did happen) the mere sight of him seemed to make her blood boil. He retreated to the kitchen for an ice pack, hoping that she didn't have a concussion. That would be awfully hard to explain, unless 'study group' meant 'fully-body-contact sport' to Sonomi's parents. He could hear Nadeshiko saying something in a soothing voice, and Sonomi's response sounded calmer than when she'd spoken to him. Ice pack in hand, he made his way back to the living room and was just in time to hear Nadeshiko explain that they'd been taking pictures.

Sonomi, standing with Touya in her arms, made that familiar hissing sound as he offered her the ice hopefully. He spared a quick dirty look for Nadeshiko, who smiled contritely at him, and opened his mouth to apologize.

"I don't want to hear one word about this out of you, Sensei. Not ever." She shoved Touya at him and stalked to the door, pulling her shoes on and ignoring Nadeshiko's apologetic appeals to stay. "This never happened. Those pictures are going to be destroyed, Nadeshiko. I don't care how cute anyone was; I'm not having them around so they can pop up at a later date."

"I'll take care of them, Sonomi-chan. I'm really sorry. Really. I didn't think it was going to wake you."

Sonomi sighed in resignation. "I'm not mad at you," she said, still facing the door. She left it at that and let herself out.

"We? _We_, Nadeshiko-san?" He set Touya down on the floor next to his bottle, and stepped over to her. He half smiled as he took her into his arms. "Didn't you say that _you_ were the one taking the pictures? I didn't want to wake her up. 'Don't wake her' I said. 'She's tired' I said. 'Let's just let her sleep' I said. So why is it suddenly _we_ taking the pictures, hmm?"

"Because Sonomi-chan was already mad at you," Nadeshiko replied, hugging him. "That was scary, wasn't it? But Touya-chan is okay, and Sonomi-san said that she was okay, too." Nadeshiko blinked and pulled back to look up at him. "She's still wearing your shirt."

"Well, that's not going to go over well at home, is it? I'm going to start making our lunches for tomorrow; what would you like?" He kissed the top of her head and started back to the kitchen. 

"Anything. You're a fantastic cook, you know. Why don't you make a cake and we'll have some of tha…" Nadeshiko paused, looking towards the back wall. "I'd better get Sonomi-chan's clothes for her." So saying, she turned and headed for the bathroom.

"I guess Sonomi-kun remembered what she's wearing after all," he said to the room at large. "Wouldn't you say Tou…what have you got in your mouth, young man?" Touya, happily pounding on his toy people with his bottle, clamped his mouth shut on whatever it was he'd been chewing on. Fujitaka sighed in resignation. "Spit it out, Touya-chan." 

Touya glared.

"I mean it, Touya-chan, spit it out this minute. It's not good, whatever it is. We don't scavenge off the floor in this family, young man. Come on now, out with it." He crouched in front of the boy with his hand out. "Give it to Papa."

Touya glared harder then whipped around to look at the door. Little eyes widening in delight, he dropped his bottle and ran to slap at the door enthusiastically. "Mama!" he crowed, although it was muffled around what he had in his mouth. "Mama! Mama!"

"Mama's right here, Touya-chan," Nadeshiko said as she re-entered the room. Touya looked at her, then back to the door and hit it again.

"Mama!" He called desperately. "Mama!"

"Touya-chan…" Fujitaka started.

"You know she's coming up, don't you, Touya-chan?" Nadeshiko looked at him wonderingly. "You can see Sonomi-chan walking to the door, can't you? He calls her 'mama' too, anata," she told Fujitaka, smiling. "He also says 'papa' whenever the landlord or the plumber comes by." 

Fujitaka looked from his wife to his son and back again. He knew that she had magic, of a kind, but he hadn't really thought about Touya having it as well. He'd always thought that kind of thing was very rare. He picked Touya up and forgot about magic as he caught site of that something in Touya's mouth

"Mama!" 

"Well, now," Sonomi's amused voice sounded from the otherside. "You've gone and gotten yourself locked in, haven't you? Nothing I can do about it, To-ya-chan. You'll have to talk to your parents about it."

Touya pounded even harder. 

"Why Sonomi-kun! What a pleasure it is to see you again!" Fujitaka beamed as he opened the door, trying to get his finger into his boy's mouth so he could scoop the thing in there out. "Spit that out, Touya-chan," he muttered, moving aside to let Sonomi in.

"Fujitaka-sensei, what is he chewing on?" Nadeshiko asked, smiling for Sonomi and gesturing toward the bathroom where her clothes awaited her.

"I have no idea. Come on, Touya-chan, let me have it."

"Give it!" Sonomi ordered sternly, her hand under Touya's chin. He opened his mouth obediently and let Sonomi's very slimy hair clip fall out. "That is so disgusting, To-ya-chan. If you're so hungry, have a candy." Sonomi pulled a small box out of her coat pocket and offered him a stick of strawberry pocky, which he promptly stuffed into his mouth. "First lesson is free, Sensei," she told him with a look of smug superiority.

"It's okay if you want to keep the shirt, Sonomi-kun," he told, just to watch that look slide off her face and be replaced by the expression she got just before she lost her temper.

"Don't tease, anata," Nadeshiko frowned at him. He smiled cheerfully at both ladies and got back to cake making.

Epilogue: 

"I'm glad your home, anata! Look at these, I just got them back today." Nadeshiko beamed at him, taking his briefcase and handing him a stack of pictures. He glanced at the top one and raised an eyebrow.

"I thought you told Sonomi-kun that you were going to take care of these?"

"And I did." Nadeshiko smiled mischievously. "Didn't they turn out well?"

"If she finds out…."

"I wasn't planning on telling her until she's in a very, very good mood. Otherwise it will just make her grumpy. But if you want to spoil her day tomorrow by telling her…." Nadeshiko trailed off meaningfully. 

"I'd never do anything of the sort," he assured her. He smiled and kissed her, as she was too pretty when she was being wily to _not_ kiss.

"Omae," Touya snarled, poking him in the knee.


End file.
